AirPods With Cameras Could Arrive Sooner Than Expected

[tech_enthusiast_]

Of course. Apple is famous for their products designed for blind people.

They quite literally have dozens of accessibility features designed to make their products useable by people with low and no vision. Also, the LOW and no vision part is critical. Not everyone who needs vision accessibility technology is completely blind. Hundreds of millions of people have what is considered to be low vision.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Unsure if your comment was sarcasm or not but, It's really not that far fetched when looking at all assistive and accessibility functionality in iOS or macOS. Matter of fact the hearing aid feature incorporated in APP2 and APP3 is a perfect example of this.

Use the Hearing Aid feature on your AirPods Pro 2 or AirPods Pro 3 - Apple Support

AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 provide a clinical-grade Hearing Aid feature for perceived mild to moderate hearing loss, as well as a Media Assist feature that enhances the clarity of music, video, and calls.

support.apple.com

I think the intent of some of the comments here is to point out that Apple does not set out make assistive devices aimed at the small subset of the population that needs them. Sure, they often add features to facilitate use of their products, but their products are first and foremost, mass market consumer goods.

I really don’t think most people would object to an occasional encounter with someone wearing a purpose built assistive device using similar technology because their situation justifies its use. But that’s clearly not what we are talking about with consumer products from Apple, Samsung, Meta, etc.

 

[tech_enthusiast_]

I think the intent of some of the comments here is to point out that Apple does not set out make assistive devices aimed at the small subset of the population that needs them. Sure, they often add features to facilitate use of their products, but their products are first and foremost, mass market consumer goods.

I really don’t think most people would object to an occasional encounter with someone wearing a purpose built assistive device using similar technology because their situation justifies its use. But that’s clearly not what we are talking about with consumer products from Apple, Samsung, Meta, etc.

I think the issue is that commenters are thinking about accessibility in a very narrow way. Accessibility isn't strictly about creating a tool that's purpose-built for physically disabled people. The Apple Watch is an accessibility tool, in that one of its key purposes is to give all users access to health information that can and does often inform them about conditions that they weren't aware of—from simple stuff like low step count to major stuff like atrial fibrillation. AirPods with live translation are an accessibility tool because they enable people to communicate across barriers (theoretically). These are things that benefit all users by increasing accessibility to tools and information.